• Somalia-based al Shabaab militants killed three teachers in an attack at Kamuthe, Garissa county.
• Teachers Service Commission says it will transfer non-local teachers to safe areas.
Image: REUTERS
Northeastern Kenya faces yet another education crisis following intensified attacks by al Shabaab militants.
The region mostly depends on teachers from other parts of the country, hence the decision by many non-local teachers not to return could massively disrupt learning.
Recently, three teachers were killed in Kamuthe, Garissa county. It was the second terror incident in a week. This caused an uproar among non-local teachers. The grief-stricken teachers were allowed to go on three-week leave.
The fallout of the precarious situation could, therefore, mirror the mass exodus of non-native teachers that followed a terror attack on Qarsa Primary School in Wajir in which three people, including two teachers, died.
The Teachers Service Commission has said they will transfer its non-local employees to areas perceived safe. As a precautionary measure, it will liaise with security agencies to provide protection round the clock.
The compassionate leave offered to the teachers ends this week, meaning they should be back in class on Monday. However, on Tuesday, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) urged them to keep off the area until the government fixes the insecurity problem. Secretary general Wilson Sossion told the TSC to reduce the period after which northern teachers can seek transfer to three years. Currently, they can only do so after five years.
"Before we urge teachers to move out, can we have an urgent meeting? Every time we raise this issue, we have never had the ministry or the TSC convene a meeting. It has been a cat-and-mouse game, which has seen teachers vacate," Sossion said.
Failure to address the issue by the Education ministry will force them to ask teachers who feel insecure to leave the areas immediately for the sake of their lives, he added.
After the February 2018 incident, Knut made good its threat and hundreds of teachers left the northern region. In Wajir alone, the TSC transferred at least 900 teachers to other parts of the country, a move that almost crippled the education sector in the county.
Some teachers from Garissa and Mandera were also transferred. At least 250 schools had to close due to lack of teachers and those that remained open were run by headteachers and a few other teachers, mostly volunteers.
A similar move was witnessed in 2014 when al Shabaab militants ambushed a Nairobi-bound bus in Mandera, killing 28 passengers, most of whom were teachers.
Since then, and despite significant progress in the sector, the northeastern counties have lagged behind education and this has been blamed on inadequate teaching staff, harsh climatic conditions and terrorism. Hence, the recent attacks could only worsen the situation unless stringent measures are put in place to forestall the looming crisis.